x's Tower is a sprawling metropolis located within a tower as tall and as deep as infinity, full to the brim with dark alleyways, dark dealings and even darker characters. Densely populated and criss-crossed with filthy canals, stone staircases, epic waterfalls and floating platforms. There is a constant struggle for power between 9 factions.

There are 3 talents: Arcana, Craft and Wisdom. No matter what faction you choose mastery of these talents is essential in victory.

Setting upTo play, each player needs a 55-card deck and a stronghold. The deck may not contain more than 3 copies of any card with the same title.

Seat all players around the table. Agree on the seating order and which player goes first. Each player then searches his deck for a starting location card, places in front of him face down and shuffles their deck. Then they must offer it to be cut by another player.

Winning the GameThe object of the game is to have 15 Power at the end of a turn. You are eliminated from the game if you have no cards in your deck at the end of a turn.

The CardsThere are four card types: Location, Character, Support and Event. Locations make up the places in the city that are under your caim. They are your primary source of resources and generate power. Stats: Faction, Talents, Trade, Influence, Structure.

Characters are the cards that get things done. They attack locations and other characters. Stats: Influence, Cost, Faction, Talents, Strength, Trade.

Events: One-off effects on the game that can be played at any time. Cost

Every card has a basic cost, which is paid for with resources. In addition to the basic cost, each card has loyalty and talents. Loyalty and talents are symbols next to their cost. A card costs an additional 1 for each of these symbols, but for every card you caim of the same faction (or with the same talent) you don't have to pay for one of the symbols. So, you can play any card in any deck, but it's going to cost you more if you don't have other cards of the same faction. Talents work like loyalty except they aren't tied to any particular factions. So you could build a deck with two factions or maybe even three, but actually be focusing around one of the talents by having low loyalty but high talent.

The TurnEach turn consists of 3 phases: Beginning, Middle and End. Players alternate clockwise, taking one action each. The player who’s action it is called the active player.

Beginning Phasea) Ready: Refresh all your exhausted cards; each player gains one resource for each trade icon they caim. Refill your handb) Generate all effects triggered “before your main phase”

Middle PhaseThe Main phase is where most of the actions happen. Starting with the player with the most influence each player alternates being the active player, at which point they can either pass or make an action. When all players pass in succession the phase is over.

End Phasea) Resolve end of turn abilitiesb) Check for victoryc) End the turn

ClaimsYou can generate power by tapping your locations to make a Claim. Your Claim is the total influence at the location that you are tapping. Your Claim can be general (with no target) or specific (choose an opponent as a target). General claims, if successful, gain you Power equal to the tapped locations Claim value. Specific claims instead seek to steal power from your opponents, and take power from them equal to the claim value if successful. Opponents can challenge Claims by tapping a location of their own. Any opponent may challenge any claim. If the claim value at your locations is higher than theirs you gain power. Otherwise, the claim is defeated and no power is gained.

BattlesAttacks are resolved in the following order:

a) Opponents may join the Attacking sideb) Opponents may join the defending sidec) Take battle actions

If an attackers target changes location, the attack continues at the new location.

Cyrus:
Yet another refined version of the game we keep trying to make, but never together, hahaThe flavor seems well thought out, which may make further developments easier... or possibly harder, but I doubt that.Gameplay seems straight forward because I know the kind of game you are going for. Care to explain how mastery of each 4 talents pertains to victory?All in all, keep it up! I've got (yet another) battle system idea that I might implement into my newer ccg idea, and I still really want to finish Kingdom (which at this point only needs beta testing really). One day, either one or both of us will finish and release a game!

Tokimo:
This sounds very cool.

Strong universe, interesting mechanical possibilities.

yudencow:
sounds like the MMO the secret world, yet still feels originalhopes to see a noir card game, let the artwork say it!

Wisp:

--- Quote from: Cyrus on November 08, 2010, 10:44:52 AM ---Care to explain how mastery of each 4 talents pertains to victory?All in all, keep it up! I've got (yet another) battle system idea that I might implement into my newer ccg idea, and I still really want to finish Kingdom (which at this point only needs beta testing really). One day, either one or both of us will finish and release a game!

--- End quote ---

Well, that was actually a bit of hyperbole. The 4 talents are a bit like colours in magic, except they are less restrictive. Basically playing cards in the game works like this. Cards cost gold. Your stronghold determines which clan you are a part of, and any characters not from that clan cozt extra gold (i was thinking either 2 extra gold or some kind of honour system where the more honour they had the more extra gold they would cost). Locations can belong to clans and controlling a locations from a different clan eliminates the extra cost. This system was great, but it was too flexible and didn't really make sense for the event cards. So i devised the talent system to work in tanden with the clan system. All cards you play provide you with talent (probably to be represented by little symbols ate the bottom of the card). As long as a card is in play or in your discard pile, it provides you with talent and talent isn't used up when you play cards that need it, it works like a threshold. Some cards require you to have a certain amount of talent before you can play them.

And dude, the battle system of this game is the only thing i'm not decided on, i wanna hear about yours!

Sorry if that was convoluted, i'm tired =] more updates when i have time!

EDIT: Thanks for the kind words about the universe, it's been a brain child of mine for some time. INPUT! =D